Activity from showbiz_liz
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Policymakers in other cities can learn from Minneapolis
Minneapolis Land Use Reforms Offer a Blueprint for Housing Affordability: Rents stayed flat as more apartments were built, even as the rest of Minnesota saw increases.
Your Cells Can Think
"It turns out that regular cells—not just highly specialized brain cells such as neurons—have the ability to store information and act on it. Now Levin has shown that the cells do so by using subtle changes in electric fields as a type of memory. These revelations have put the biologist at the vanguard of a new field called basal cognition. Researchers in this burgeoning area have spotted hallmarks of intelligence—learning, memory, problem-solving—outside brains as well as within them."
How long can an abandoned house stay habitable?
I’m working on a story involving a ghost, and she needs to have been alone in an abandoned house for a long time before someone moves in. What’s the longest amount of time, realistically, that the house can have been vacant for? It’s ok if the house needs significant rehab.
National WTF Day
According to a bunch of silly websites, today is both National Bagels and Lox Day and National Pizza Pie Day, while tomorrow is both Cream Cheese Brownie Day and Umbrella Day. But like, says who? Where the hell do all these fakey holidays come from?
In Search of Short Horror Collections
What are your very favorite collections of short horror fiction? Multiple authors only, please!
Yes, I'm sure.
Why don't my cheap wired earbuds work in direct sunlight?
Places to write in NYC
Where in NYC can I both use a laptop and eat until 11pm or midnight on a weekday?
Lowest-possible-effort Mediterranean diet?
After a routine blood test came back with various issues (high A/G, high LDL cholesterol), my doctor has asked me to follow a "low LDL cholesterol Mediterranean diet" for two weeks and return for another blood test, as a way of ruling out diet to see if anything else is going on. Upon googling, I found a shitload of time-intensive recipes that I ABSOLUTELY DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR over the next week. What is the absolute simplest way to do this?
Forgot PIN, life over
It seems I have absolutely, completely, fundamentally forgotten my laptop PIN (PC). How utterly fucking fucked am I?
Send me your historical gays
Please recommend great queer literature written before 1960. I just read The Haunting of Hill House and it blew my mind.
The Indignities and Mediocrity of Brute White Patriarchy
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is under investigation by his own Attorney General and is facing possible impeachment for two colliding scandals: mounting allegations of sexual misconduct, and allegations that he deliberately under-reported COVID-related nursing home deaths. Today, New York Magazine published a lengthy, exhaustively researched, and incredibly damning exposé about the toxic culture of Cuomo's Albany. Despite calls for his resignation from a majority of state lawmakers and New York’s Congressional delegation, Cuomo says he's not going anywhere.
I Want To Believe
In less than six months, US intelligence agencies must report what they know about UFOs to Congress. December's coronavirus relief and government funding bill began a 180-day countdown for providing the information. This follows the Pentagon's acknowledgement last year of its Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force, the existence of which they had previously denied.
Online community for queer women
Where do queer women hang out online?
"It shall bee published that hee is a man and a woeman”
For Intersex Awareness Day, Colonial Williamsburg shares the story of Thomas or Thomasine Hall, an early Virginian settler who was brought to trial for refusing to identify as a man or a woman.
What colors to paint my apartment?
After living here for years, I finally get to choose paint colors for my currently all-white apartment! I am paralyzed with indecision! Please help!
The necessity of self-defense is not a theoretical principle
The Case for Black American Self-Defense. "Pacifist injunctions obliterate the history of, and need for, armed protection. The Black tradition of organized, armed self-defense should be regarded as one of the many tools in the repertoire of modern protest movements."
Please diagnose my pepper plants
Can you tell me what is wrong with these pepper plants?
The real viral content was the friends we made along the way
I Used The Sims To Perfect My Apartment is not what it says on the tin. Instead, this 15 minute video from gaming site Polygon.com unravels into a bizarre meditation on depression, loneliness, and friendship which in These Trying Times scratched an itch I didn't know I had. (However, it will almost definitely not help you perfect your apartment.)
Native NYC seeds for seed bombing?
This year, I'd like to seed-bomb the vacant lot behind my building in NYC (so USDA hardiness zone 7a/7b), and I'd like to use native plants. The soil looks stony and is always full of dandelions in warm weather. What types of seeds should I get, and from where? And when is the best time of year to throw the seed bombs down?
Mrs. Fletcher: Free Sample
While Brendan gets settled at BSU, Eve finds herself torn between the fantasy world of internet porn and the prospect of a real-life date.
No fairy godmother jokes please (unless it's a REALLY funny one)
After my godmother passed away a few years ago, her daughter found this bone or ivory wand-like object in her house. What is it? (She was active in the Lutheran church, so it may be a religious object.)
Don't Drive Like My Brother
Car Talk's Long Goodbye: an interview with Ray Magliozzi, former cohost of the NPR mainstay Car Talk, on the show's history, its legacy, and his relationship with his departed brother. And for dessert, a podcast interview with Ray on the brothers' surprisingly conflicted feelings about cars and car culture.
Long Live Pale Male
In 1991, a red-tailed hawk settled in New York City. Dubbed Pale Male by birdwatchers, he went on to establish a dynasty of urban hawks - now over 20 individuals strong - who have so embraced city living that they display many distinct behavioral differences from other red-tails. But is Pale Male still alive? There are passionate arguments on both sides of a debate that has been described as "the third rail of the birding world."
A Random, Motley Crew Of Fuckups Flying Through Space
Mission to Zyxx is an improvised science fiction podcast following a team of ambassadors as they attempt to establish diplomatic relations in the remote and chaotic Zyxx Quadrant. What elevates it above other improv podcasts is an obsessive dedication to professional sound design and editing, with each 30-45 minute episode requiring up to 80 hours of post-production work. Read about the team's process here - and then get listening.
Some neighborhoods were not worth fixing.
In the 50s and 60s, Syracuse's 15th Ward was a thriving working class black community. Then the calls for “urban renewal” came, and the 15th Ward was destroyed to make way for Interstate 81. Today, the Syracuse portion of I-80 is at the end of its useful life. To determine what comes next, the city must come to terms with what the highway destroyed. But can tearing it down fix the sins of the past?
The Last Days of John Allen Chau
In the fall of 2018, 26-year-old American missionary John Allen Chau traveled to a remote speck of sand and jungle in the Indian Ocean, attempting to convert one of the planet's last uncontacted tribes to Christianity. The islanders killed him, and Chau was pilloried around the world as a deluded Christian supremacist who deserved to die. Alex Perry of Outside Magazine pieces together the life and death of a young adventurer driven to extremes by unshakable faith.
“I can’t wait to get back to the shop again and blow things up.”
The surprisingly engrossing history of How The Milwaukee Bucks And A Former Wedding DJ Won The T-Shirt Cannon Arms Race.
Feeling uninformed
What site can be my one-stop shop for national and/or international news (NOT JUST POLITICS)? I have a handful of go-to sites for local news and news in my industry, but I've realized I've seriously fallen down on knowing what's going on nationally in the realm of not-politics (for example, I only found out about Hurricane Barry just now by random chance). But I don't have the patience to juggle half a dozen sources for this sort of thing - I just want one comprehensive site (maybe two) that I can check once or twice a day.
"We absolutely have an emergency on our hands."
It’s Shocking How Badly New York City Is Failing Cyclists. "For [Robyn] Hightman, riding a bike was everything: It represented work, recreation, and family. But the city Hightman had embraced so completely wound up fatally failing them."
History of the treatment of psychic abilities in science fiction
I read a lot of vintage science fiction, and I've noticed a trend I'd like to explore further. In stories written in or around the 1970s, psychic abilities in humans are often treated as a legitimate scientific possibility based in human biology. In later stories, this isn't the case: the possibility of 'natural' psychic abilities in humans is treated as purely fantastical. I want to know more about when and how these shifts occurred. When and why did writers begin thinking of inherent psychic abilities as scientifically plausible? When and why did this stop?
Scoot The Future
Last year, people took 84 million trips on shared micromobility (ie bike and scooter share) in the United States, more than double the number of trips taken in 2017. This infographic-heavy report from the National Association of City Transportation Officials shows where and how these rapid increases are happening - including the stunning fact that almost all of that increase came from scooter share programs, which didn't even exist the year before. How are our cities grappling with this trend? And could it ultimately reshape the design of our streets?
Post-post-collapse fiction?
I've read plenty of speculative fiction taking place in the years/decades following the collapse of society (for various definitions of "the collapse of society"). I'm looking for recommendations for post-post-collapse fiction, taking place after society has begun to rebuild itself.
Incredible clawhammer banjo playing
I just started taking clawhammer banjo classes, and I'm looking for inspiration. Please send me your favorite clawhammer jams! Any era, any genre, whether technically proficient or paired with a catchy song or in an unusual genre, whatever. I want all the exposure I can get!
Wear Your Meds On Your Sleeve
Wear Your Meds distributes buttons with images of commonly-prescribed mental illness medications, with the goal of normalizing the open discussion of those medications and the conditions they treat. All proceeds are donated to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. The project was developed by copywriter Lauren Weiss, who upon finding the right medication thought “It blew my mind that people actually lived a mentally stable life all the time. Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
"We just beat the richest man in the world."
After months of public outcry and demands for transparency, Amazon has cancelled its plans to build a corporate campus in Queens. Activists and community groups who swore they would crush the deal are elated; real estate brokers, not so much.
Food you don't have to think too much about eating
I'm on two medications that 1. almost eliminate feelings of hunger until after I get home from work and 2. make me slightly queasy. As a result, I keep skipping lunch, which is bad. Recommendations for stuff I can eat?
“She came out of nowhere for us and it and it felt like a cavalry.”
When Kate McKinnon Spoofed New York City’s War on Cars. Before Saturday Night Live, the comic starred in a series of shorts for Streetfilms.org as an angry SUV lobbyist railing against the pedestrianization of Times Square, helping to cut the legs out from under the opposition.
Aurora Astorialis
Last night, for several minutes, the night sky over New York City was illuminated with brilliant electric blue light. The NYPD insists that it wasn't aliens, but you can draw your own conclusions.
The subway crush transformed New York into what it is today
It’s Time to Fall in Love With Stuffy, Crowded Subways: Why Elon Musk is wrong about the future of transportation. "Ubers, self-driving cars, and hyperloops titillate the imagination by promising a speedy, comfortable, and isolated vision of transportation — but all these promises are illusory. If we’re ever going to make cities work, we need to accept, and come to love, a fundamental truth: Packed urban transit is good urban transit."
Reflection as a self-congratulatory proxy for action
"Conservative funders focus on the big picture, act quickly, do not micromanage, provide significant general operating funds, fund for twenty or thirty years, support leaders and movements, engage in policy and politics, and treat grantees as equal partners. Progressive funders—with a few exceptions—intellectualize, are severely risk-averse, focus narrowly, fund isolated strategies and programs, avoid politics, and treat grantees like parasites and freeloaders." 10 things progressive funders must learn from conservative ones, or we are all screwed.
Who would deign to attack such a German institution as soccer?
SPOIDS
Spiderween: An Arachnophobe-Safe Guide To Spiders. "I think everyone deserves a chance to learn about such an amazing corner of the animal kingdom, and so for an entire thirty-one entries in a row, we're about to go over some of the most interesting spider species, spider habits and spider superpowers without a single realistic spider in view. Instead, we're substituting the real animals with anthropomorphs I believe I've designed to capture as much of a spider's 'character' or 'personality' as a four-limbed, two-eyed, endoskeletoned biped ever reasonably could."
Verbs for wheelchair use
What is the equivalent of the verb "walk" for wheelchair users?
“I would never run, never. I don’t know where they got that from."
The New York Times called dozens of the Queens party machine’s nominees for county committee. The candidates for 21 seats were running without their consent. Only four candidates The Times spoke to said they were running on purpose. Some no longer even live in New York. Meanwhile, more than 60 members of the progressive New Queens Democrats sought nomination but were disqualified for paperwork technicalities by the Board of Elections - whose commissioners are chosen by county political bosses.
Practical steps for dog adoption in NYC
I am in NYC and would like to adopt a dog three or four months from now. What are the concrete steps I need to take between now and then to prepare for this?
It really could have been anyone.
"Having killed two people and hit three others, Dorothy Bruns did not receive a summons. Had her car not been wrecked, she might have been allowed to drive home. A couple of weeks after the crash, we learned that she had reportedly hit another pedestrian in September and sped off. Paperwork that would have led to a deeper review had gone unfiled. Like Nikolas Cruz, the Parkland shooter, she was recognizably unfit to handle a dangerous machine, known and perhaps flagged by the authorities but not stopped, leading to violent, preventable death. And a lot of people seem to think of a driver’s license in near-purist Second Amendment terms: as a right that can be revoked under only the most extreme circumstances." What New York Should Learn From the Park Slope Crash That Killed Two Children.
Stop de Kindermoord
The Netherlands is known today as a haven for pedestrians and cyclists - but this wasn't always so. In the 1970s, a growing epidemic of traffic deaths led to a nationwide advocacy movement called Stop the Child Murder. The result was a transformation in Dutch street design which has rendered its public spaces among the safest in the world. With American traffic fatalities on the rise, activists are beginning to call for Americans to get truly angry about traffic violence.
We remain committed to strong, independent reporting that fills the void
Public radio stations WNYC (New York), KPCC (Southern California), and WAMU (Washington, D.C.) have joined together to acquire key assets of Gothamist and its associated sites LAist and DCist. The acquisition is being funded in large part through philanthropic donations from two anonymous donors. Is this another indication of the rising wave of nonprofit journalism?
What plants can survive me?
I've killed most plants I've tried to grow through, frankly, a combination of ignorance and neglect. However I have managed to keep some oxalis triangularis (purple shamrock) thriving over several years indoors, even propagating it through repotting. I'd like to know what other plants I am likely to be able to keep alive on a New York City fire escape (moving them inside during the winter if necessary).
What the heck is going on at Newsweek?
Last month, agents of the Manhattan District Attorney’s office raided Newsweek's headquarters and seized more than a dozen of the company’s servers. Last week, BuzzFeed News reported that the company had engaged in “fraudulent online traffic practices." That same week, Newsweek Media Group co-founder and chairman Etienne Uzac and his wife Marion Kim, NMG's director of finance, both stepped down - amid increasing allegations about their ties to a controversial fundamentalist Christian church. And today, it was announced that Newsweek had gutted its editorial staff, firing Editor in Chief Bob Roe, Executive Editor Ken Li, and several reporters - all of whom had recently been reporting on Newsweek's recent legal troubles.